John Carmack to receive BAFTA Fellowship

Id Software co-founder, Doom lead coder and Oculus tech chief will be honoured at British Academy Games Awards on April 7th

0

SHARES

One of the founding fathers of the first-person shooter is to be recognised with one of BAFTA’s highest accolades.

John Carmack is a name that hardly requires introduction, but here it is anyway: one of the co-founders of developer Id Software, Carmack was lead programmer on seminal shooters Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, helping establish concepts such as first-person gunplay and networked multiplayer.

He now serves as chief technology officer at VR specialist Oculus, having joined the Rift headset maker in 2013.

Carmack has also continued to support the development community and charities, and is known as an advocate of open-source platforms. His Twitter feed makes for fantastic reading, too.

“Receiving a BAFTA Fellowship is a great honour,” he said. “Over the course of my career, I’ve remained passionate about the potential for engineering and technology improvements to expand the range of human creativity.

“Graphics, networking, extendable platforms, and now virtual reality; each has enabled magnificent new things that delight millions of people. I am as excited about the future today as I was when I started.”

BAFTA games committee chairman Harvey Elliot added: “We are truly honoured to be awarding this year’s Fellowship to the incredibly talented John Carmack.

“John embodies creativity through all of his work and is a true pioneer in the field of computer engineering.

“His work in the games industry has spanned more than two decades and the contribution he has made to gaming, from titles such as Commander Keen and Quake to the advocacy and drive he constantly delivers within his work on VR at Oculus, highlights why John is truly deserving of this award.”

The Fellowship will be handed out at the British Academy Games Awards on April 7th.